


Retribution

by cruisedirector



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Apologies, Crushes, Disappointment, Disapproving Family, Episode Related, F/F, Kissing, Maquis, Mentor/Protégé, Mentors, Self-Acceptance, Starfleet Academy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1995-12-31
Updated: 1995-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-05 13:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>B'Elanna considers the ways in which Kathryn Janeway has changed her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Retribution

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jaeti](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=jaeti).



> This is ancient--the original airing of "Prime Factors" era--and not really resolved, but then what on 'Voyager' ever is?

If anyone had told her six months ago that she'd find herself fighting back tears because she'd let down a goddamn Starfleet captain, she would have laughed--or torn the speaker's throat out. Yet here she was, sitting in the dark in her quarters, on the verge of bawling...like the first time she'd flunked a class at the Academy because the professor thought she had a big mouth. Like the first time one of those Starfleet boys had fucked her, just so he could tell his friends he'd fucked a Klingon, after he'd made her feel briefly like she wasn't a freak. Like the first time she took some initiative in the Maquis and reprogrammed that goddamn Cardassian missile, only to have Chakotay tell her that she was too angry a person to understand real committment to their cause.

And instead of learning, she went crawling back for more shit from Starfleet. Couldn't play by its rules, couldn't even break them right. Why the hell did she want to get back to the Alpha Quadrant, where Starfleet was everywhere? Her friends were here. If they were her friends. If Seska wasn't just using her to keep tabs on Chakotay. If Henley didn't just see her as a fellow victim. If Harry didn't think of her as an irresponsible malcontent, if Paris didn't want her like an exotic curiosity.

And if they were still her friends after today. She knew Chakotay was furious with her, and wasn't sure whether it was because she'd dared to defy Janeway, or because she'd dared to defy Janeway without consulting him first. Mad that she couldn't be more like him. Just like her father, before he left. She and Chakotay didn't talk much these days, even though he was no longer her commanding officer; he kept his distance, spending his little free time alone, or teaching Janeway how to contact her animal guide. She knew perfectly well why Chakotay was more interested in spending time with the captain than with herself--and it didn't have to do with ship's business, or spiritual matters. Lovely, lonely KathrynJaneway. The rest of the crew had lives, even out here. Harry and Tom were busy with the Delaney sisters. Seska was probably never going to forgive her for telling the truth today. Ironically, it was Tuvok, who'd wanted her in the brig from the get-go, who had stuck his neck out to keep her out of trouble at Sikarius. But not for her. For the same reason she'd confessed. For the captain.

B'Elanna clenched her eyes shut but the images came anyway. A smile in a shuttlecraft, a manicured hand on her shoulder on the Bridge, those fathomless blue eyes flashing hurt at her in the ready room. Janeway managed to make her feel like a little girl trying to please her mother--nothing like her real mother, of course, for whom B'Elanna could do nothing right, but like some ideal figure of feminine perfection. Hah. Her Klingon half was calling the captain a bitch, a fool, a stupid cunt--all the things Seska had been saying since they came aboard Voyager. B'Elanna herself had thought the same way, standing on the Bridge that first day when Chakotay's arm was the only reason she hadn't punched Janeway's lights out so they could all go home. And later that week, when Janeway insisted on dredging up B'Elanna's Academy record while deciding who should be the chief engineer...

What was it with that woman, that she insisted on giving everyone second chances they didn't deserve? Herself, Paris, Chakotay--undoubtedly Tuvok too, after today. Janeway probably deserved a mutiny, which was why she wasn't going to get one. It was impossible to hate the captain. B'Elanna didn't understand how Seska could keep it up. Chakotay certainly couldn't--he was ffalling in love with her--and most of their former Maquis comrades couldn't either, not even Dalby or Jonas or psychos like Suder. Because Janeway kept putting her faith in them, even when they hadn't earned it. They couldn't let her down without letting themselves down.

When B'Elanna had taken the role of chief engineer, she'd been aware that it would mean consulting with the captain almost every day--crisis meetings, constant communication. She thought they might get to know one another. She'd toyed with the hope that they might become friends. What a joke. Kathryn Janeway didn't need friends, apparently didn't need any support from anyone. Janeway had her ship and her crew and herself, and seemed to like being in charge, even 70,000 light years from home. B'Elanna couldn't remember ever having any kind of female role model before. She wasn't even sure whether Janeway was a good one--too confident, too competent, isolated behind command. Janeway made decisions, stuck with them, didn't second-guess herself or dwell on might-have-beens. Or hold grudges. And Janeway had had all the advantages--bright and beautiful, from Earth, from a stable home, from Starfleet stock--connections, affluence, breeding. Janeway was Torres' antithesis.

The door buzzed. B'Elanna swiped at her eyes, ordered the computer to bring up the lights a fraction. She expected it to be Chakotay--probably to grill her about what the hell she'd been thinking, possibly to take her head off. Or to commiserate. "Come in," she called angrily, and turned away from the door, sitting sideways on her chair, looking in the direction of the viewport.

The door swished open. In her peripheral vision, B'Elanna could see that the figure who entered was too slight to be the first officer. She turned her head a fraction, and caught the movement of arms being crossed. Shit. Not her, not now.

"I owe you an apology, Lieutenant," the arresting voice said softly.

"_You_ owe _me_ an apology?" Fear that her voice would shake made her project more forcefully than she should have, and she thought she sounded sarcastic.

"For dressing you down in front of Tuvok. I had no business doing that, no matter what you did. That was personal. I suppose I should have brought in Chakotay and discussed formal reprimands."

"I'm just as glad you didn't."

"I meant for Tuvok as well as you. I suppose it looked very unfair, and I don't want you to think it had anything to do with your work on this ship--or your past career." B'Elanna nodded shortly; maybe Janeway would get this over with and leave. "Your performance as chief engineer has been exemplary. I guess I treated you differently because I thought I understood Tuvok's reasoning, but not yours." The captain sighed. "I'll try to explain to you what I explained to him. I must know that I can count on my officers--to present options, to confront situations head-on, but never to take matters into their own hands. Never to violate Starfleet and Federation law. Never to go behind my back."

Janeway's voice grew nasal on the last few words, and B'Elanna felt herself choking up again. This was the closest thing she and Janeway had ever had to a personal conversation. That was the thing with the captain: one minute the woman would be calling a junior officer by the first name, smiling, touching her shoulder, and the next minute she'd be the Queen of Voyager again. Janeway got to decide when the barriers got moved around and when they went right back into place. The captain could have thrown Torres in the brig, and instead here she was.

How to tell her that it was never personal, that B'Elanna had wanted what was best for their entire crew, that it had been a scientific problem and a engineering-wide decision and--what would Janeway herself have called it?--a crunch situation? Part of her wanted to beg forgiveness, and another part wanted to slap both Janeway and herself. "I deserved what you said..." Her voice rose to an alarming squeak on the last syllable and she shut up, praying that Janeway would just leave her alone.

But, then, that wasn't Janeway's style. She moved around toward B'Elanna, sat down on the arm of the chair, took a good look at her face. B'Elanna bit down on her lip, tasting blood, and looked back. Janeway had dark circles under her eyes and her makeup was smeared. So Kathryn the Great could be brought down by the likes of her pet Vulcan. The knowledge gave Torres no comfort.

"Why _did_ you do it, B'Elanna?" the captain asked in a husky voice, and the chief engineer surprised both of them by being unable to speak, burying her face on the side of the chair right next to Janeway's hip. She felt the captain touch her shoulder, then slide her fingers maternally over the coarse Klingon hair. The sensation gave B'Elanna a jolt. She could never do the same, of course, could never bury her fingers in those auburn waves...

She whispered, "I didn't want to do it."

"You've been adamant about getting home all along," Janeway sounded doubtful, and B'Elanna suddenly realized that it must seem that way to the captain: the upstart Maquis had challenged her on the Bridge, worked night and day when they'd discovered the wormhole to find a way to get back, and now this. What had she been thinking, anyway? She drew in a shaky breath, felt Janeway move her fingers through her hair again.

"My friends wanted to get home. I guess I wanted to see how the neutrino envelope worked. And I wanted to think that I had someone to go home to." What the hell was wrong with her? The Klingon half, and all her strength, seemed to have gone into hiding. Well, not completely into hiding. She was still thinking about touching Janeway's hair. And Janeway's eyes, which thankfully couldn't be seen in this dimness unless Torres looked closely which she was not going to do--same blue as the warp core--undoubtedly focused on her right now, the same look of betrayal as she'd worn in the ready room. The captain had left her hand where it was, brushing against B'Elanna's cheek. A surge of longing--and then a surge of anger, she hadn't known it was coming, she never did. "And I didn't understand how you could be so sure that you were right. With the Ocampa, Chakotay said afterwards that I of all people should understand, it was what a Maquis would do, saving so many people. But you seemed to think that the Prime Directive didn't even apply."

"Are you questioning my decisionmaking, Lieutenant, or my principles?" Janeway's voice was dangerously quiet, though her hand had not moved from its soothing position resting on B'Elanna's face. "Permission to speak freely. We're never going to understand one another, otherwise."

"Neither, Captain. I'm trying to understand too."

Janeway spoke after a moment. "Sometimes I forget that you didn't complete the Academy training that Chakotay and Tom Paris did. I had a discussion with Chakotay the first day you were on my ship, because before I made him first officer, I wanted him to help me understand why a Starfleet officer had been willing to invite a war which would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives, a scale of destruction vastly greater than any Cardassian actions in the Demilitarized Zone. I don't think we really settled anything, except we agreed that even the Maquis depend on discipline and committment to follow orders which might seem repugnant." A beat. "The legal authorities aren't always right about everything, but the law is sometimes all we have to fall back on to keep us from killing one another. I know you understand, Lieutenant--" Janeway stressed the word as B'Elanna's face turned up--"that the principles and the hierarchy are the foundation of our cooperation, not the other way around."

The captain was doing it again, mentoring instead of punishing. Didn't Janeway realize that she was just making it easier for B'Elanna to think and act defiantly? She would never have Janeway's composure, nor her committment to ideals which transcended personal feelings. And she would never be subtle enough, or empathetic enough, she would never have that air of authority, she would never have the qualities of command which had enabled this woman to pull Tuvok, Chakotay, herself into her service, inspiring a loyalty that none of them could shake.

And she herself would never have that kindness which was keeping Janeway here, hand on B'Elanna's face, looking with concern at her, mouth slighly parted in questioning, so soft, the command energy focused entirely outwards. Waiting for her lieutenant to tell her what she needed to do to hammer the message home. A flood of warmth washed through B'Elanna--she needed to offer something in return. She rose onto her knees on the chair, wrapped her arms over the captain's who smiled slightly in puzzlement. She closed her eyes and kissed Kathryn Janeway on the lips.

Delicious electricity moved through her body like liquid flame. B'Elanna was afraid to move. She didn't think she'd ever touched anyone like this, slowly enough for the heat to seep through her, burning and melting everywhere. The slap, the recoil, the rejection she anticipated never came. She heard the captain suck in her breath, opened her eyes to see Janeway's expression changed, still caring, but with a new worry, fear that she'd misread her underling--not certain now how to resolve the situation. Step back, Torres, B'Elanna ordered herself, but the Klingon part wasn't listening, was suddenly ravenous, having had a taste...

A note of alarm rose in Janeway's eyes, not fear exactly, but discomfort with the situation. B'Elanna held her more firmly and pressed her face against the side of the captain's, whimpering as the ridges on her forehead brushed Janeway's hair. The captain had tensed, the set of her jaw tightening. Hands curling like claws on B'Elanna's arms. But she wasn't fighting her off, not yet anyway.

Torres froze. Again, Janeway was putting her faith in her lieutenant's own control, her own scruples. The captain didn't know what the Klingon was capable of, didn't even seem to acknowledge that B'Elanna could injure her. Or maybe she did, but she wasn't going to hurt her anyway. If Janeway wasn't stopping her, it was out of duty, out of charity, because she was Kathryn Janeway and she didn't wound people unless she absolutely had to. The captain didn't want pleasure or intimacy from a member of her crew, she didn't need her lieutenant's adoration, only her loyalty. She certainly didn't need someone who'd a few hours ago betrayed everything she stood for, someone who couldn't keep her head together at the Academy, who'd joined the Maquis, who had no family, no real friends, no one like herself...a freak.

Her Klingon half which had been so aroused and so angry withdrew furiously within, leaving the rest of B'Elanna shaking helplessly. "Forgive me, Captain," she whispered, backing away. "Please...I'm sorry I touched you like that--I'm disgusting, I know--I think you should get out of here--"

Janeway hadn't let go of her, was shaking her head no, trying to still Torres with her hands on her shoulders. "It's all right. Why would you say you're disgusting?"

"Well, _look_ at me!" The words burst out of her as her arms jerked involuntarily, trying to throw Janeway off. "You said it when you first met me, I can't control myself. It's what everybody thinks. I can't even be a real Klingon, I'm too weak. And I sure as hell can't even pretend to be human. My own father couldn't stand the sight of me, my mother had no use for me..."

The captain held still until Torres stopped talking. "If I didn't think you could control yourself, I would never have put this ship in your hands. And you don't see yourself the way others see you." Janeway smiled a little. "Passionate and independent and mysterious. Unique."

B'Elanna had her bloody lip caught between her teeth. She tried to roll her eyes. "Different. Not brilliant, not commanding the way you are--if people turn around when I walk in a room it's to stare at the freak, not because I'm beautiful..."

She shuddered. The captain's expression changed again, took on that decisive quality of command when she knew she had to make a point. "Yes, you are," she whispered, entwining her fingers in the dark hair once again. B'Elanna started, stared, lifted her hands to Janeway's head and sank her fingers against her scalp, loosening the twist just enough that a long coil fell free. She ran her fingers down it beside the captain's face. "Not like you," she whispered again, hoarsely.

Again Janeway inhaled sharply. She looked like she was weighing protocol, propriety, and the fact that she wanted to get out of there against how much it would hurt B'Elanna if she did. Janeway was more in control than B'Elanna would had been in the same situation; she took B'Elanna's hand firmly in her own and pulled it away from her body. "We're both a little upset. Maybe we should go get something to eat. Want some coffee?"

"We," not "you." Still no condemnation. Torres let go and turned away before she burst into tears like a little girl. Nonetheless, Janeway moved with her, circling, and B'Elanna dropped back into the chair, curling her legs against her body, hands over her face. "I'm not hungry. You go on. I'll see you later. Captain."

"You'll be all right?" Janeway asked quietly.

"Just..." Leave me alone, B'Elanna almost cried, but she didn't, because Janeway deserved better and because she didn't mean it, and because she didn't want to cry in front of the captain. She felt Janeway's hand touch her hair again, more hesitantly this time, and looked up. The captain looked a little confused, her brows furrowed. She doesn't touch us for us, B'Elanna thought suddenly, she touches us because she needs to touch people. Because she's lonely. Janeway sank down slowly onto the front of the chair, her back against Torres's legs. "Are _you_ all right, Captain?"

"I want to go home, too," Janeway whispered, swallowing hard, and Torres suddenly saw the face not of her captain, but a woman surrounded by people who were not her friends--she'd lost as much as any of them when they were stranded there, a home and a lover, and she probably felt responsible for all of them. Just as isolated as B'Elanna. "Can I...just sit with you, for a minute?" Janeway asked.

"If you trust me to keep my hands to myself." Bitter. The captain turned. "Uh,that...what I did, before. That wasn't like me. My evil Klingon half--" she snorted "--sometimes gets ideas, I don't know where they come from. Well, I guess I know where that one came from, but it's not like me just to act like that..."

"It's all right."

"You're not angry?"

"I'm flattered." Janeway's smile was warm but a little shaky. "And we're all lonely. I didn't realize...I guess I didn't think about how awkward it must be for you as chief engineer on this ship. I know it's been difficult for Chakotay, but he talks to me about it. I wish you would, too."

"Wish I would?" B'Elanna asked, confused, not sure what she was being invited to do.

"Talk to me. Tell me when you're feeling unconnected. I realize that you're supposed to report to Chakotay, but I'd like it if you came to me sometimes. I know I've put you in a difficult position."

"I wanted this position. I didn't even know how much until you gave it to me--I never thanked you properly, Captain." They smiled at one another. "And I wanted...to work with you. To get to know you a little."

"So did I. Those first couple of days, working on the spatial rift..." Torres remembered the quicksilver excitement of brainstorming with someone who knew right away what she was thinking, who could keep up with the science as nobody in the Maquis could. The air was becoming charged again; she knew Janeway could feel it too. "B'Elanna, are you sure you don't want to come eat something? If we walk into the mess together, everyone will know there are no bad feelings between us, and that will be good for the whole crew."

"All right." It wasn't the ending she was expecting, but then nothing this day had gone as she expected--very little which had happened to her since she met Kathryn Janeway had gone as expected. Janeway rose from the chair and held out a hand to help Torres up, a little forcefully. Back in captain mode. "Thanks," B'Elanna said, probably unnecessarily, but with feeling.

"You're welcome, Lieutenant," the captain smiled, and united they headed out.


End file.
